Letter #9 – JUNE 21, 1862

SUMMARY

Here Thomas Jackson vents his pent up frustrations and fury about the war. He finds it incredible that the southern states would be willing to fight for "liberty" but points out they only love liberty for themselves but want to keep slavery for somebody else.

Also an insight into the use of the demeaning use of the word "niggers" by many in the north.

TRANSCRIPTION

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Reading June 21st 1862

Dear Cousin Caleb,
I expect you think it strange that I have not answered your kind letter long
ago. Well the truth is, I think it is strange myself too. Really I have very often
thought of you & of all my English relatives & have many times determined to
write & then put it off again & again.

One great cause is this war we have on hand here fills up everybodys spare
thoughts & takes all our spare time to talk & read about. I have sent you
several newspapers & could send you many more. I take 3 daily papers &
one weekly. And after knocking around all day I am glad to sit down in the
evening & read my papers & then get sleepy & cannot write. Sunday is a day
of rest & the older I get the more I like to make it such & to enjoy it as a much
needed rest. But to day I make a start with a letter.

I presume you have heard from cousin John Watson oftener than from me &
he tells you much family news. I have not seen him these six months, but he
often writes me. He got married again some few weeks ago. I have not seen
his new wife but I presume he has got good one. At all events is old enough
to make a suitable selection. I hope he will be happy and comfortable for the
rest of his life, for he has worked hard & always tried to do right & well
deserves to be so.

(page 2)

I suppose you English take a good deal of interest in this war of ours. All the
civilized world seems to do so more or less, but England more specially.
And well they may, for indeed it is most extraordinary event in the history of
the world, and a strange instance of the most unaccountable inconsistancy &
selfish perversity of mankind. Here is a nation that started into its
independent existence eighty years ago declaring the most devoted love of
liberty, the most ardent affection for freedom & the most sincere respect &
regard for the rights of men. Then they held five hundred thousand human
beings in slavery & professed the most humble regret that such was the
lamentable condition of their infant nationality.

The northern states were sincere in those regrets & immediately commenced
measures for the removal of the evel & succeeded so well that more than
half of the states are entirely free from the stain and curse within themselves.

But the southern half of the great republic has been false to its professions
and entirely repudiated the great principles upon which it rested all its claims
for independence eighty years ago. The south has made all its high sounding
declarations of liberty & the rights of man a hissing glaring lie, & and has
nurtured & encouraged the odious institution untill the slaves have been
increased from five hundred thousand to four millions, & it's a vile
contamination has also demoralized the free states so for, that although this
is entirely a slaveowners rebellion, and it is the slaveowners ownly that
began the war and aim to break up the government & dismembered the
nation, yet the north will submit to be bathed in blood & lose tens of
thousands of loyal white mens lives in a prolonged & barberous conflict, with
a hundred thousand slaves used against them, sooner than

(page 3)

they will interfere with the "peculiar institution" all give freedom even to the
slaves of the rebels in arms against the government, although it is well
known that these rascally slave drivers are forcing the poor bondman, who to
a man are all loyal to the union, to help them make war upon us. Under the
name of conservatives they want to restore the union as it was & preserve
slavery as it is, merely for the sake of southern trade & its fancied profits. It is
a very melancholy fact, but it is nonetheless true than lamentable, that
southern slavery so far demoralized the whole north, that every man who
has made a wheelbarrow or sold a side of bacon to go south, is clamorous
for "adhering to the constitution" as they call non-interference with slavery,
although the slave-owning rebels have trampled the constitution under their
glory feet in the best hearts blood of our bravest men.

Through all the north the poor blacks are called "niggers" and the cry of
these conservativesis "Who would fight for the freedom of the damn'd
niggers?" " What white man is mean enough to stand and fight alongside of
the damn'd nigger?" An yet the slave drivers are forcibly using the same
"damn'd niggers" to aid in killing off scores of thousands of our proud whites,
simply and only because the white Americans, who avow implicit faith in the
equality of all men, practice that faith by preferring the risk of bloody defeat
with the "damn'd nigger" forced to fight against them, rather than certain
victory & an early & successful end of the war, with the poor negro willingly
fighting alongside of & for them, and asking no rewarded at our hands but
only the liberty God gave to all as a birthright & our knowledgement of him of
all those great & inalienable rights which we price so highly & hold so dearly
for ourselves.

(page 4)

But this wall will go on untill we see one of the most astonishing instances of
the wonderful workings of God to counterbalance the lack of principle in man
that this world ever witnessed. The slaveholders could even now secure all
that constitutional rights as slaveholders & the perpetuity of their beloved
slavery together with a preponderating influence in the management of a
national affairs, if they would lay down their arms and return to the equality of
states they have always had.

But they will never do that. So the obstinacy of man will yet accomplished to
just, wise & merciful intentions of the almighty. These crazy rebels will yet
fight on untill "conservatism" is thrown to the winds. The government forced
to declare the abolition slavery. Then bond & free will join in allience. More
than a million men will rush to arms and the haughty manstealer will be
crushed out quickly & slavery known no more in all of North America.

I am 55 years old, but I shall take a hand in that great stroke & so will my
sons, when the war cry of "down with slavery" rings out. Hundreds of
thousands in the north all anxiously but patiently waiting for it and fully ready
to respond. Now mark my words. The harder the slaveholder fights the more
certain is the accomplishment of his ruin, & the more secure will be the
liberty of the enslaved.

The only great drawback is that slavery it will be abolished not from any
noble principal : Not from the white mans innate love of universal liberty and
impartial justice, but as what is called "a military necessity". Such is the
meanness of this modern democracy & contemptible conservatism. There is
a large class of widemouthed patriots here, who have been educated to love
liberty for themselves & slavery for somebody else. And they are so
numerous that if the slaveholders had not gone mad ,they would willingly
help preserved slavery for them for ever.

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Front of Envelope containing this letter (as always these may have become
mismatched over the years)

AMBASSADORS' NOTES

This letter is in places somewhat more confusing than others. Thomas Jackson's elaborate style of criticizing his opponents sometimes gets out to hand! However several important issues are covered here.

Perhaps most revealing is that in mid 1862, TJ now recognized that many in the North had little interest in the rights and well being of black Americans and indeed had no wish to fight for them or alongside them. This pragmatic awareness must have been very discouraging to TJ who was devoting his energies to abolishing slavery and had expected that the North would support the war with abolition as part of its mission (although of course this was not the prime motivation that lead Lincoln to try to force the southern states to stay in the Union).

Here he gives examples of how the label of "niggers" was always used in a derogatory manner to show a lack of respect or concern for back people.

The ambassadors have noticed that throughout all of Thomas Jackson's extensive correspondence, he himself only uses the N word when describing the speech of his opponents. Although the word was of course widely used in most communities in those days, he personally always seemed to avoid the use of that word back in 1862 and probably many years before it became a touchstone issue of political correctness and empathy.